Monster Of The Fic: The Maid's Tale
by mispel
Summary: Cordelia leads the gang into danger when she turns to them for help with a domestic situation. Season 1
1. Chapter 1

Monster Of The Fic: The Maid's Tale

Chapter 1

  
  


"You bunch of freaks have got to help me."

That's what Cordelia said as she entered the Sunnydale High School library, wearing something blindingly tasteful and in the absolutely latest style.

"Speaking for myself, I am overwhelmed with the desire to help," Xander said turning around in his chair. "No, wait. I'm wrong. That's something I ate."

Willow gave him a well deserved "ewww" face.

"If I need my lawn mowed, badly, I'll call you. Now, you can go back to being useless. For this I need the freakishly smart and the freakishly strong," Cordy said turning to Giles, Willow, and Buffy.

"Gee, I'm so sorry I can't help you out with my freakishness, Cordy. I have to go file my nails," Buffy said and got ready to leave.

"Your nails do need the attention. Desperately. But a manicure - much like plastic surgery and cleaning the toilet - is not a do it yourself project. Get professional help," Cordy told her in her 'I am being monstrously cruel for your own good' kind of way.

Buffy looked like she was about to say something back, but then she looked at her nails and just looked sad.

"Maybe if you were nicer, people would be more eager to help you," Willow pointed out.

"Nice is for losers," Cordelia said as she stared right at Willow. "So what's the procedure? Do I fill out a form?"

"How about you just go back to whatever hell boutique spawned you, you ungodly mannequin," Xander said to her and made a cross with his fingers in her direction.

Xander's finger cross had no effect. Cordy was still there.

"You try fighting demons and keeping your nails perfect," Buffy said with an accusing side glance at Giles like the condition of her nails was his fault.

"Looking good is not a right, it's an obligation, Buffy. I have to make myself look extra stunningly gorgeous just to make up for slobs like those." Here, Cordelia pointed to Willow and Xander and got Giles in the sweep of her hand, but it's doubtful that she even had a place in her fashion continuum for someone so tweed bedecked. "Buffy, if you don't hold up your end, and at least look presentable, I'm going to need another hour in front of the mirror. I'll have to get up at 5 A.M. because you have ragged nails. Can you live with that?"

"Yes," Buffy said as she started to chew on one cracked nail.

Cordy slapped her hand down. Buffy looked for a second like she might rip her arm off. Cordy didn't notice.

"If we listen to you, will you go away?" Giles finally asked seeing that Cordelia's visit had gone from annoying to potentially violence inducing.

"As quickly as humanly possible," Cordy agreed looking around the library with disgust.

"Go on," Giles said as he sat down tiredly.

"Our maid refuses to come to work," Cordy stated.

"Oh, you are kidding me," Xander said and dropped his head on the desk.

"How is this even remotely in the paranormal domain?" Giles asked looking more tired by the second.

Cordy took a good breath and proceeded to tell him exactly how this was not of the normal.

"Well, she refuses to come out of her pitifully undersized house. She has holed herself up in her bedroom with a year's supply of Cornflakes and Gatorade. She has a weird bird thing painted on all her windows and doors. And she's wearing a smelly doohickey around her neck that looks like a tiny, shriveled bat head necklace. Gross and tacky. Every time she speaks, she recites this weird little poem before she says anything and after she says anything. And Mom offered to double what we are paying her, and she still refused to come back. We are living in filth. I am running out of clean towels, and our refrigerator veggie bins haven't been scrubbed in three days."

"Umm, veggie bins aside, this kind of does sound like our kind of thing," Willow said to the others.

"Either that or working at the Chase manse for the Chase clan has Chased the poor woman completely and utterly out of her freaking mind," Xander offered.

"Those are two valid theories. I would like to see these bird paintings for myself and perhaps speak to the woman," Giles said.

"I'm not sure she speaks English," Cordy told them as she prepared to lead the way to the house of her wayward maid.

  
  


To be continued...


	2. Chapter 2

Monster Of The Fic: The Maid's Tale

Chapter 2

  
  


"You don't know if your maid speaks English?" Buffy asked as Cordelia led them through an unglamorous neighborhood with old cars in cracked driveways and imperfect lawns.

"She can say 'Yes, Miss' and 'No, Miss' and 'Later, Miss' and 'I'm busy, Miss'. But I talk very slowly and I point a lot so..." Cordelia started to explain but Xander interrupted her.

"I don't think we have a mystery here, people. Who would want to work for Cordy? There isn't enough money in the world," Xander said.

Buffy nodded. The woman had to do Cordelia's bidding and she went nutso, as was only natural under the circumstances.

"So you actually came here?" Willow asked surprised that Cordy would step foot in a working class neighborhood.

"I had to do something. Berta finally figured out how to make my bed exactly the way I like it. If she doesn't come back, I'm going to have to train a whole other maid to make my bed the right way. And I don't have that kind of time," Cordy told them.

Buffy and Willow exchanged a look behind her back and nearly backed into her when she stopped. They had arrived at a small, yellow house. And just as Cordelia had said, there were weird, bird-like paintings on all the windows and on the front door. Willow had a notebook ready and started to draw the paintings.

"Let me." Giles took the notebook from her and reproduced the bird more accurately and quickly than Willow could have.

"Do you recognize it?" Buffy asked Giles.

"Yes. It's an image barring entrance to demons and such," he said as he finished up the drawing.

"Then how did Cordy get in?" Xander said with a smile and a rim shot.

"Is art class over? Should we knock? The neighbors are staring," Cordy complained.

Actually there were no staring neighbors, only a dog looking at them funny and someone driving off.

A simple knock didn't do the trick. The door stayed closed. Even Cordelia's obnoxious knocking and yelling didn't do the trick. It was Giles's mellifluous, British tones that got the woman to let them in. He said he knew what was happening, and that he could help her.

"Maybe help you," he corrected himself once they were inside.

Berta was an older woman with a bad die job. Way too dark for her. The woman was in dire need of highlights. She had startling blue eyes. Really sharp and darting around like a bird's. She did wear a weird necklace. Both Giles and Willow couldn't stop staring at it. And she did speak English after all, with a heavy accent. She said the weird, foreign poem before and after every sentence just as Cordelia had told them.

"The protection symbols," Giles said as he pointed to the windows, "the necklace, the chant - you are hiding from something. Something unnatural."

The woman nodded. Probably to save on the chanting. Giles put one of his demon books on her kitchen table. When Berta saw all the demon pictures she crossed herself.

"Find the picture of your demon in here, if you know what it looks like." Giles paused to let her nod, and she did. "And we'll go on from there."

Giles flipped through and had her start about a third of the way in.

"So what's the deal? Does she need a straight jacket or do I get to slay something, other than Cordy," Buffy asked in a whisper.

"I can't be sure if this is a real or imagined threat. But the methods she has used are well known and often effective," Giles said as he looked at the shadow of the bird painting from the window falling on the wall opposite.

Xander and Willow had been milling around in the living room.

"What's up?" Buffy asked them since they had their heads together over a photograph.

"Just browsing," Xander said and showed her the photo. There was a young girl sitting in that same living room with Berta.

"That's her annoying granddaughter," Cordy said, "Alex or something."

"Says Alexa on this student of the month certificate," Willow pointed out as she smiled at a framed, first grade, straight A report card next to it.

"Whatever. Actually she should be here. And she isn't," Cordy said as she looked around as if she noticed the girl's absence for the first time.

Everyone marveled at Cordy's powers of observation. And went over to give Giles this new piece of the puzzle.

  
  


To be continued...


	3. Chapter 3

Monster Of The Fic: The Maid's Tale

Chapter 3

  
  


Buffy, with Willow and Xander close behind, went back into the kitchen. Berta, the maid, was looking through the demon book on her plastic tablecloth covered kitchen table.

"Her granddaughter isn't here," Buffy told Giles. Xander showed him the picture.

Berta stopped what she was doing and started to shake her head in the negative very vehemently. They all stared at her. But she didn't explain, only grabbed the picture away from Xander.

"Is the demon after your granddaughter as well?" Giles asked hoping a yes or no question would be easy on her. But all he got was more head-shaking.

"What's with the not speaking? She was talking before," Xander pointed out.

"Yeah. She was started every sentence off with that thing in Guatemalan," Cordy backed him up.

"Hungarian," Giles corrected her. Berta rolled her eyes at Cordy. It was kind of funny to see an old, Hungarian lady rolling her eyes.

"She is undoubtedly trying to protect her granddaughter. More so than herself," Giles said. Then he went back to supervising Berta as she looked through the demon mug book again.

The rest of them twiddled their thumbs for a while, fingered her tchachkies, and in Cordy's case, complained about the decor, the waste of time, and her unfolded laundry.

"Of course," Giles finally said his eureka. He held up the demon book and showed them a demon with a funny looking, oval head.

"It's a Yulig demon. Yes, it all makes perfect sense now. It can track its victim over great distances. The necklace hides her from its sight. The chant is to keep the demon from hearing her. If those fail, the paintings will keep it from entering the house," Giles said looking happy. Berta didn't share his enthusiasm.

"So where do I find this Yule Log demon and how do I kill it? Preferably without ruining my outfit," Buffy asked.

"Anything a demon does to your outfit will be an improvement," Cordy told her.

"It could be anywhere, Buffy. And not a lot is known about this particular demon," Giles said looking stumped.

"No, Giles. Don't look stumped," Buffy begged.

"I'm afraid our best course of action is to wait for it to show up," Giles proposed looking at Berta uneasily.

She was back to head-shaking.

"I guess she doesn't like the plan where she gets to be demon bait?" Xander figured.

"But if she takes off the necklace and talks and stuff, it will be here lickity split, and we can take care of it. And by we, I mean Buffy," Willow said with a cute smile.

"There's still a problem of how to kill the demon. I can bash it and slash it, see if that does the trick," Buffy said and she shrugged. It wouldn't be the first time she threw everything and the kitchen sink at a demon she wasn't sure how to kill.

"Apparently, we would also be endangering a child, so we should find out more before we do anything that would leave Berta and her granddaughter unprotected," Giles said and tucked the demon book under his arm.

"So we research our little heart's out? Do we just leave her here?" Xander asked.

"Would you like to stay here and protect her?" Giles asked him.

Xander weighed the option of research vs. babysitting.

"You got cable?" he asked Berta as a tiebreaker.

  
  


To be continued...


	4. Chapter 4

Monster Of The Fic: The Maid's Tale

Chapter 4

  
  


Berta did have cable so Xander planted himself comfortably on her green and white couch while the rest of the gang went back to the library.

Once there, Giles and Willow carried over two tall stacks of books to the table. Buffy and Cordelia groaned in unison, then looked at each other suspiciously.

"Can't I just kill something?" Buffy asked.

"Yeah, me too," Cordy volunteered.

"She's like your evil twin," Willow said of Cordelia. Buffy glared at Willow who made a halfhearted sorry face.

"As if." It was Cordelia who complained. She raised her hand to indicate her own tallness and Buffy's shortness. Buffy stopped glaring at Willow and started glaring at Cordy.

Then they settled to research. Willow took the computer and used the information she had on Berta to try and find out more about her and her family.

"Aww. Little Alexa's parent's are dead. That's so sad," Willow said to the computer screen as she kept scrolling.

"Mmm. Kind of weird. Her Mom killed her Dad and then herself. Except according to the time of death, she died first," Willow told the others.

"A zombie or something?" Buffy suggested, but Giles just made some kind of noise as he kept reading.

"I wish I could go further back, but it's all Hungarian to me," Willow said and looked at Giles for guidance.

"I can make some frightfully expensive, international calls," he said as went to his office.

"Do we get snacks? Refreshments?" Cordelia asked as she read.

"I have gum," Willow offered.

  


"I heard you had Cornflakes, right? And Gatorade," Xander said to Berta as she sat on the couch and they watched the evening news. Berta nodded. She had custody of the remote.

"Anything else? I'll settle for chips? Pretzels? Ice cream? Peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Leg of lamb? Jar of mustard?" All of Xander's inquiries were met with a shake of Berta's head.

"Cornflakes and Gatorade it is then," Xander said.

Berta dished them out, separately, Xander was glad to see, and the two of them settled themselves in for the game show hour.

  


Giles came back from his office, and the three researchers looked at him hopefully.

"The Budapest office of the Watchers Conical was surprising helpful," Giles said as he came back.

"Send them a gift basket," Cordelia said. "So what'd they say?"

"Your maid comes from a rather unfortunate family. Though in their own way, they have done rather well under the circumstances," Giles told them.

Giles began his tale while Buffy, Willow, and Cordelia chewed gum very attentively.

"It seems that some generations ago, Berta's family had been targeted by a demon species particular to Eastern and Central Europe - the Yulig demon. The demons select their victims within a single family. They lay their eggs inside a recent grave establishing a connection with the descendents of the deceased. Once the eggs hatch, the adult hatchlings are able to track their victims through this bond. Berta's family was able to defend itself through the practice of magic and nearly extinguished the threat," Giles told them.

"Nearly," Buffy said seeing the problem.

"Yes. Usually, when the numbers of their chosen family dwindle, or move too far away, these demons move on to other families. Preferably ones with numerous children. But because Berta's family targeted them in return, they have continued to pursue her even though she and her granddaughter are the last surviving members and are quiet outside of the demons' territory."

"So that's why Berta is stuck hiding in her house and wearing funky jewelry," Buffy pointed out.

"Hey, I got the funky jewelry. Gaggingly gross," Cordelia told them since she had found an entry about Berta's necklace. "Those are shriveled bat's heads. But it gets even better. Boiled in blood. Ewww. Then dried over a fire of bones. Puke," Cordy finished and slammed her book shut.

"It may not be appetizing, but it is effective. That measure has made her invisible to the demon's eye," Giles pointed out.

"One, big eye," Buffy said as she held up a book where she had found an illustration of the demon. The picture was much better than the one Berta picked out. It showed a demon whose head was an oval with one big eye in its center. It had only two long fingers on each hand and a body that looked gnarly and knotty like a weird, misshapen tree.

  


If Xander had been awake instead of sleeping on Berta's couch, his hand protectively curled around the hard won remote control, snoring softly to the sounds of MTV, he might have seen a more lifelike version of that picture outside the window of the little, yellow house.

  
  


To be continued...


	5. Chapter 5

Monster Of The Fic: The Maid's Tale

Chapter 5

  
  


Xander also might have heard Berta talking in her sleep, in Hungarian without any chanting before or after. Xander heard nothing and saw nothing except a slowly undressing Buffy of his dreams turning into a jar of mustard. And no matter how much he tried, Xander couldn't pry the lid off the mustard of his dreams.

  


"You said demons. So there'll be more then one?" Buffy asked Giles as Cordelia and Willow continued researching, focusing now on how the Yulig demon should be killed.

"I can't be sure," Giles told her.

"Hundreds? Dozens? Baker's dozen? Bigger than a breadbox?" Buffy kept asking.

"Possibly only one. Certainly no more than a handful," Giles told her.

"Do we need to know more about the protection bird painting thing? Because I have that. Did you know you can get a decal thrice blessed by the Guru Mlama Plio for 45.99 plus shipping? No messy do it yourself painting," Willow asked.

"I don't think we need..." Giles was saying when Willow interrupted.

"Hey, hey! Does anyone remember stepping on one of those things?" Willow asked looking alarmed.

"What?" Buffy asked her.

Giles instantly knew what she was talking about.

"How could I have been so stupid?" Giles wondered as he grabbed his jacket off a chair.

"We have to go," Willow told Cordelia and Buffy, who didn't know what was going on.

"Xander is in trouble," Willow told Buffy as she shoved her toward the door.

Willow's face was a mass of worry. Buffy wanted to get more info from her, but Willow turned away to talk to Giles.

"Maybe it was under a rug?"

"It must be on the floor of every room, on every ceiling," Giles told her and Willow's face fell.

Buffy got what they were talking about. They were right, the protective bird paintings were on the windows and the doors, nothing on the brown linoleum in the kitchen, nothing on the well trampled, forest green carpet in the living room.

"But it's only a failsafe. The demon can't find her with the necklace and the chanting, right?" Buffy asked.

"And we left him behind, and he isn't even armed," Willow said not reassured by Buffy.

"I am sure Xander is fine," Giles told her.

"How could she mess up like that?" Willow asked, mad at Berta for her oversight, but looking at Giles with accusation in her eyes.

Giles was too preoccupied with kicking himself to notice the look. Since he had put Xander in danger by overlooking the omission, Giles sympathized with Berta's mistake.

"The knowledge becomes corrupted through disuse. And these old methods are passed down through generations," Giles said.

"Like a game of telephone, right?" Buffy asked as they hurried to Berta's house.

  


Xander got up, grateful that Berta liked to leave a lamp on. He went into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator just on the off chance that there was some non Gatorade beverage hiding in there. There wasn't. It was Gatorade land. Xander settled for water. He had wanted to ask Berta what was the deal with the Gatorade and Cornflakes diet, but he didn't want to get her chanting again. Then Xander remembered seeing the overstuffed mailbox at the end of the driveway. No job, no stepping foot outside the house - it was only a matter of time before her electricity got shut off. Mystery solved, hello non perishables. But she could have gone for some variety. How about some chips, or saltines, or soda, or mustard. Mmmm mustard.

Just as Xander started to worry about his burgeoning mustard fixation, he felt something strange under his feet. The kitchen linoleum was buckling. Then it bulged. Xander got thrown off balance and fell against the refrigerator.

"Berta! We got trouble!" he yelled.

An inhuman arm burst through the floor then another. Xander was knocked to the floor. He scrambled up and started opening drawers till he found a knife. He lunged for the demon as it emerged from the hole in the floor. Xander stuck the knife into its shoulder. The demon just ran off, like the knife poking out of its flesh was a piece of lint.

"Berta, watch out!" Xander warned her as the demon was coming her way. He ran after the demon. The demon headed right for the bedroom. Berta was screaming her head off.

Xander grabbed a chair along the way and smashed it into the demon's back. The demon swiped at Xander, knocked the chair out of his grip easily. The demon then shoved Xander away and into the doorjamb. As Xander passed out, he saw Berta throwing her bedside lamp at the demon. But the demon still kept coming.

  
  


To be continued...


	6. Chapter 6

Monster Of The Fic: The Maid's Tale

Chapter 6

  
  


"So exactly why did we leave the monument to wimpitude that is Xander to guard my maid?" Cordelia asked as they made their way through Berta's neighborhood.

"OK, this is your only warning!" Willow threatened with a raised fist. Cordelia was too stunned to say anything. Or to laugh.

"And we left him over there because Giles thought her security system would keep them safe," Willow said with another accusing stare at Giles.

Giles caught that one. He raised his eyebrows and looked for a second like he was going to say something about that, and maybe about Willow's attitude. But then he decided the blame was well deserved. Seeing Giles swallow whatever he was going to say, Willow felt bad and said a soft, little "Sorry" that only Giles could hear.

After some fast walking, they arrived at Berta's house to find the front door wide open. Xander stumbled out looking dazed and hurt.

"Xander! Are you OK?" Willow asked, going up to him and helping him stay upright.

"Where's Berta?" Cordelia asked walking past Xander and into the house.

The house was dark. Cordelia could be heard yelling for Berta. Buffy went after her before she got eaten by a monster or something.

"Berta! Hello!" Cordelia yelled out into the dark.

She nearly tripped over an overturned chair. Buffy turned on some lights. They found no monsters, and no Berta, just broken furniture, and a hole in the kitchen floor. Willow and Giles led Xander back inside and helped him to sit on the couch.

"I don't know where she is. But that thing, what did you call it, it got in here, right through the floor," Xander explained.

Willow was dabbing at a cut on his head with her sleeve.

"Just as we feared," Giles said.

"At least you are OK," Willow told Xander. Xander didn't look relieved about that. He was feeling bad about Berta.

"I don't even know which way it went," Xander said. Then he said "Ow" because Willow touched a bruise.

Giles went to examine the hole in the kitchen floor. Buffy circled the house and found where the tunnel ended.

"The tunnel comes out in the back. No sign of Berta," Buffy said when she and Giles met up again.

Giles nodded.

"OK. What does it do? This Yule Log demon. It took her away. Why? Where?" Buffy asked Giles. He shook his head.

He and Buffy went into Berta's bedroom to have a closer look at the damage in there. Cordelia followed them. The light was bad. One bedside lamp was out of commission. The other one was kind of dim. Looking around, Buffy found blood on the other side of the bed. She showed it to Giles but didn't let Cordelia see it. Cordy seemed genuinely worried now - she was creasing her forehead just inviting wrinkles.

"How are we supposed to find her?" Cordelia asked exasperated by the lack of action.

"I'll see if I can find some trace or something," Buffy said. She meant a trail of blood where the tunnel ended in the back of the house, but she didn't want to say it.

"I'm coming with you," Cordy stated.

"No, you aren't," Buffy told her. She was very firm but then decided to take it a little easy on Cordy under the circumstances. "I need to move fast and... Go back and research. That's the best way you can help."

Giles agreed.

"How can I sit around and read books?" Cordelia asked.

"Because you want to help find her," Willow told her.

Xander was still wobbly from being knocked out so Willow and Giles supported him as they went back to the school library. They took Cordelia along with them, to Buffy's relief.

Buffy looked around for more traces of blood. She didn't find any. She circled around the neighborhood further and further out from the little, yellow house. But there was no sign of the demon or Berta or which way they might have gone.

Buffy was considering going back to the library, but then she had another idea.

  
  


To be continued...


	7. Chapter 7

Monster Of The Fic: The Maid's Tale

Chapter 7

  
  


After meandering through some smelly, back alleys, Buffy ended up at the cemetery. She crisscrossed the graveyard saying, "Here kitty, kitty?" to the gravestones she passed. Her plan had been simple - wander around Sunnydale's more unsavory sites till Angel popped up. That was the way it usually worked. Only Angel wasn't popping yet. Buffy was starting to wish for a Bat signal.

"Looking for someone?" Angel asked her. He was leaning against a tree she was about to pass.

"Aren't you worried that one of these times, you'll startle me, and I'll stake you?"

"I stay awake nights worrying about that," he said very deadpan. So deadpan that she thought he might be serious. She wanted to reassure him. With kissed. Or would groping be more reassuring?

"Actually, I was looking for a creature of the night who might tell me if they've seen any new demons around. Like weird spoonheaded, one eyed demons?" Buffy asked him.

"Spoonheaded? Haven't seen any. Heard there is a new demon around. Has a mission. Keeps to itself," he told her eyeing her very intently.

"Just one demon. Aha. Where does this demon keep to itself? And does it happen to be a Euro-demon by any chance?" Buffy asked him.

"Moves around. Hasn't set up a lair so far. Euro-demon? I don't know," Angel said.

"So much for my brilliant idea," Buffy pouted.

"Sorry, I couldn't be of more help," Angel said looking a little stricken that she was disappointed in him.

"I guess it's back to Giles with zip. He said there isn't much info on this Yule Log demon. And it's kidnapped someone or killed her," Buffy groused as she kicked at the cemetery grass.

"Yulig. I know a few things," Angel told her.

Buffy's face lit up, and Angel just stared at her for a while.

"Talk," Buffy said and she grabbed the front of his shirt jokingly. Angel smiled. Buffy smiled back. But then she got serious again and stepped back.

"So what you got for me", she said then cleared her throat because of the way she made it sound. Dirty.

  


At the library, Cordy was looking very glum, turning the pages furiously, making Giles wince. He gently eased the ancient book away from her and handed it to Xander. Giles gave Cordy a less rare volume to abuse.

"Berta made me soup when I was sick once. Gross, Hungarian soup," Cordy said.

"We might find her," Willow told her.

"Yeah, the demon that's sworn to wipe her and hers off the face of the Earth probably took her out to a dinner and a movie," Cordy snapped.

"Why did it take her anywhere?" Willow asked turning away from angry Cordy to Giles. "It could have killed her right there," Willow whispered.

"That's what we need to find out," Giles said grimly. He looked like he agreed with Cordelia that Berta didn't have much of a chance. Xander looked depressed too. Willow sighed.

  


Angel was leaning against a tree, with his arms folded. Buffy wondered if it was because he didn't know what to do with his hands. Or maybe he did know what to do with his hands, but wanted to keep it all business.

"The Yulig demons are very secretive. But I knew a boss of a Russian flesh eating demon clan that did some business with them," Angel told Buffy

"Back in your evil days?" Buffy guessed.

"Yes," Angel admitted. Then he waited for her to spit on him, the vile, despicable creature that he was, or something.

"Go on," Buffy told him, not spitting on him at the moment.

"Halfway through a bottle of vodka, the flesh eating demon told me the Yuligs can control their victims once they are dead," Angel told her.

"Like zombies?"

"Not exactly," Angel told her.

Buffy noticed that Angel looked different. There was a sort of blush over his pale as a gravestone skin. Something about the light was... The light!

"Angel. Daylight in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1," Buffy counted down on her nonexistent watch.

"I know," he said, very nonchalantly but not very convincingly. And then he was gone.

Buffy sighed. It wasn't dawn yet, just really close. The sky was a little reddish around the edges. Buffy went in search of a payphone.

  


The phone rang startling the gang out of their researching stupor. Giles went to answer it. Willow decided to focus her search on Berta's family, and especially Alexa, her granddaughter. She couldn't find any trace of Alexa's whereabouts, though. No relatives on her father's side with whom she might have gone to stay. No hint of where her grandmother could have sent her. Just school records and other useless stuff.

"I think we have to go back to Berta's house," Willow told the others.

"I think we have to go to school," Xander disagreed pointing at the clock.

"We are at school," Cordelia reminded them. "I know because of the icky, book smell."

They saw the time, and Xander was right.

"I'm not going to be seen in the same outfit I had on yesterday," Cordelia announced looking down at herself with the kind of distaste she usually reserved for the fashion mistakes of others. She got up to leave.

Giles came back into the room.

"That was Buffy, she has new information. She's going to make an appearance at home, and then she's going to brief us," Giles announced.

They all went to make appearances at their homes and get ready to skip school. Giles stayed behind. He looked over the table. A mass of books - many lying open. The computer Willow had been working on was still humming. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. A long night and their work was not done.

  
  


To be continued...


	8. Chapter 8

Monster Of The Fic: The Maid's Tale

Chapter 8

  
  


After she got to the library and made her report, the group headed back to Bertha's. On the way, Buffy told Willow about her Angel encounter with a shrug and a smile. Cordy was glaring at them so they didn't giggle.

When they arrived at Berta's spookily quiet and disarranged house, Willow went straight for the phone in the kitchen.

"You want the redial? Don't bother. I called home from there last night to tell Mom I was at an all night study session. It may not be believable. But throw in a demon attack, and that's actually the God's honest truth," Xander told her.

"Bedroom phone," Buffy said. Remembering the blood on the rug, which would certainly be more visible in daylight, she quickly added, "Cordelia, why don't we look around here for clues." She headed off Cordy before she could follow Willow and Xander into the bedroom.

"Yes. I'm afraid the bedroom phone won't be much use anyway. It was knocked over," Giles didn't say in a struggle. But Cordy had a blank look of someone who was reading between the lines.

  


The phone was a bust. And busted. Willow and Xander looked through the bedroom for any other clues to Alexa's whereabouts. Buffy and Giles were keeping Cordy busy in the living room and the kitchen. Xander tried not to step on the blood.

"So we're not looking for Berta any more. We're looking for dead, zombie Berta," Xander said as he pulled out a drawer to see if anything was hidden behind it.

"No. She might be..." Willow tried for a positive spin but gave up because of the way Xander was looking at her. He was sort of pleading with his eyes for her not to snow him.

"We're looking for her granddaughter. She might be next," Willow said going for the only positive spin she could find.

Xander nodded.

"I think it's weird that Cordy didn't say anything - about me letting her maid get killed. Or kidnapped, if we want to be insanely optimistic."

Willow motioned around the room at to the rest of the house. There were signs of a struggle everywhere. The demon didn't just waltz in there. Xander was lucky to be alive.

"Even Cordy knows there was nothing more you could have done except get yourself killed."

"That might sound good to Cordy."

Willow didn't address Xander's remark. She was feeling for anything stashed under the mattress, while going into a blame spiral.

"We shouldn't have left you here. It wasn't safe. Buffy blames herself for not staying. Giles blames himself for not noticing the missing paintings. I blame myself for not figuring it out sooner. Cordelia probably blames herself for something too."

Willow looked back toward the bedroom door to make sure Cordy didn't sneak up on her. Xander got down to look under the bed.

"Yeah, I sort of feel sorry for her. I've been holding back so many zingers I think I'm going to bust something," Xander said as he got up, and they moved on to Alexa's room.

  


In the kitchen Buffy was picking up a child's drawings and other stuff that had been knocked down from the refrigerator door to the floor. Then she stopped, shopping list in hand.

"Can these Yule Log demons read?" Buffy asked Giles.

Cordy stopped rummaging through kitchen drawers with a huff.

"Can you? It's Yulig. Yulig," Cordy corrected her.

Giles looked at her with astonishment and a little bit of gratitude. He was so very tired of Buffy's wild mispronunciations.

"OK. Yulig. Giles? Can they?" Buffy asked again.

"I don't know," Giles told her after looking thoughtful for a moment.

"If Berta was hiding her granddaughter, she wouldn't leave anything behind like an address unless the Yulig demon can't read." Buffy pronounced the demon's name very carefully this time.

"Some demons become assimilated to the human world. Others tenaciously keep to their ways and reject all artifacts of human culture," Giles lectured.

"I don't think ol' Yuli is a 'when in Rome' kind of demon," Buffy decided.

"Well, if he is, we're wasting our time, aren't we?" Cordy said grouchily. "Or not," she added immediately.

She held up an address book she had fished out from a drawer. They looked through it. Lots of names were crossed out.

"I d' like to think that all these people got nice, new phone numbers," Buffy said.

"Yeah, sure they did, 'This is the morgue, how may I help you?'. And Berta is going to turn up any minute and iron my laundry," Cordy said.

She was very gloomy. Buffy stared at her for a second, but didn't know what to say. "There, there, your laundry is going to be OK" didn't seem appropriate. Buffy turned to Giles who was looking through the address book of the dead.

"So who's left?" Buffy asked him.

"Several numbers. I think we can safely disregard, Al's Pizza Palazzo," Giles said still flipping the pages.

"You can't disregard the Palazzo. They have killer garlic bread," Xander said as he and Willow joined them.

"We found this in Alexa's room," Willow gave Buffy a birthday card with a ten dollar bill stuck in it.

"It says, 'from your Aunt Liza'," Buffy read.

"Aunt Liz couldn't spring for a twenty?" Xander said.

"Aunt Liz couldn't spring for a last name either. Was there an envelope?" Buffy asked.

Willow shook her head.

"She didn't turn up in my research either," Willow told them. "She might be from Alexa's dad's side of the family, though. That would mean she was more likely to still be alive."

"Here she is. Apparently among the living," Giles announced finding her in the address book. "I'm afraid we have no last name or address."

"I can find that from the phone number," Willow told him.

"Can't we just call her up?" Xander asked.

"People are generally more forthcoming in person. But in this case a warning would be in order," Giles said and went to use the phone in the kitchen.

Giles spoke to someone and used his bad news voice. They could hear a faint exclamation on the other end. Then the phone call was over.

"Didn't feel like chatting?" Buffy guessed.

"She didn't give me her address before she hung up, either" Giles said and rubbed his eyes.

"I guess you're at bat, Will," Xander told her.

  


They left Berta's place. Cordy closed the front door gently. It was still decorated with that stupid, useless, bird picture.

"How many classes can we skip before we get expelled?" Xander asked as they walked back to school.

He looked to Buffy for an answer. Buffy deeply resented that.

"I don't know. But I can tell you how many gyms you have to burn down," Buffy told him.

"Is it one?" Xander asked.

"I can't get expelled," Willow said sounding panicked.

"They can't expel you - the cumulative GPA of the school would plummet," Xander reassured her with a little pat on the shoulder.

Cordelia didn't say much so they exchanged worried glances behind her back.

  
  


To be continued...


	9. Chapter 9

Monster Of The Fic: The Maid's Tale

Chapter 9

  
  


Alexa was sitting in the living room with tape over her mouth. She was drawing on papers scattered over the coffee table. Aunt Liza was in the kitchen cooking. She wasn't really her aunt. She was just Grandma's friend from the old country.

Aunt Liza and Grandma had painted funny pictures on the windows and the doors of Aunt Liza's house. They didn't let Alexa help even though she was very good at drawing. Aunt Liza worried that the paint wouldn't wash off.

She made Alexa wear a gross and scary necklace all the time. Alexa hated it. The smell made her sick to her stomach. But Grandma had made her swear on her Mom's grave that she wouldn't take it off. She also put tape over Alexa's mouth. Aunt Liza only took it off when Alexa ate. First she'd say, "Remember. No talking." Then Alexa would nod. Then tape would come off and in would go goulash or something.

The phone rang and Alexa jumped up hoping it was Grandma. But it wasn't. Aunt Liza shook her head at Alexa to let her know that. Alexa sat back down. Aunt Liza sounded upset. She said, "Oh, no!" Alexa got worried.

Aunt Liza stood in the kitchen for a while. Then she sat down holding her head. Alexa sat quietly in the living room, watching her. Aunt Liza made a bunch of phone calls. Sometimes she spoke in English, but mostly in Hungarian. Alexa was getting hungry. She could smell the stuff Aunt Liza had cooking on the stove. Aunt Liza hung up the phone. Then she started rushing around.

"Up, up! We have to go," she said to Alexa.

Aunt Liza went and threw stuff into a big bag. She told Alexa to get ready to go. She put on her shoes and yelled at Alexa to put on her shoes. Then she ran back into the kitchen to turn off the stove. Then she stood still listening to a noise at the kitchen door. She crossed herself. She grabbed Alexa by the arm and pulled her toward the front door even though Alexa only had one shoe on. But they didn't reach the door. Something crashed through the ceiling right in front of them. Aunt Liza screamed. Alexa would have but her mouth was taped up.

The thing that fell through the ceiling had a large, wide head. In its middle was a gray hollow with a sickening gray sheen. Its body was knotted into thick misshapen joints.

Aunt Liza and Alexa backed away from it. With its twisted arms, it reached all around like it couldn't see.

Aunt Liza pulled Alexa back toward the kitchen - the only way open to them. Something was at the kitchen door shaking it. Aunt Liza went to get her meat cleaver. Before she could grab it, the demon that had crashed through the ceiling slammed into her as it came into the kitchen, blindly. Aunt Liza fell against the stove, burned herself and screamed. Alexa cried and hid under the kitchen table. The thing stumbled around the kitchen groping with its two fingered hands. The kitchen door was shaking hard.

Aunt Liza grabbed the pot from the stove. She threw it on the thing's back. It roared in pain. Alexa scrambled into a corner. Aunt Liza tried to reach her meat cleaver again. But something broke through the kitchen door. The door fell apart, and there was another thing inside now. It was wearing Aunt Berta's housecoat. But it didn't have a face. Instead, one big eye filled out the place where her face was supposed to be. At the edges, the flesh curled away from it. Alexa's screams were trapped behind the masking tape.

Aunt Liza turned to the door. She stopped with the meat cleaver raised. She mumbled something in Hungarian. It looked like she was frozen. The thing that had Grandma's body took the meat cleaver from her hand. The thing turned its head. The big eye looked straight at Alexa.

Alexa didn't want to scream any more. She felt cold. Her head felt heavy. Everything seemed further away. Like someone had put her behind glass.

The blind demon turned and stopped stumbling around the kitchen, groping with its claws. It followed the eye that had replaced Berta's face. It went toward Alexa. Alexa didn't even blink as the monster approached her.

  
  


To be continued...


	10. Chapter 10

Monster Of The Fic: The Maid's Tale

Chapter 10

  
  


Willow had found the address for Aunt Liza, and they rushed over there. Willow was with Giles, Xander, and Cordelia trying to get through the front door of Liza's house. Buffy was going around the back. She could hear a ruckus inside. The back door leading into the kitchen was broken into pieces.

Buffy came through the splintered doorway into the kitchen. She took in the scene and grabbed Berta's cold hand as it raised the meat cleaver to strike. Berta's other hand was holding on to her friend Liza's arm. She had been about to chop it off.

Berta turned to Buffy. Buffy gasped. Berta's face was gone, hollowed out, what used to be there replace with the demon's eye. It was the eye that was missing from the demon's massive head. And that demon was inches from Alexa.

Buffy was stunned by what she saw. She lost her grip on Berta's hand - the one with the meat cleaver. Buffy ducked as the meat cleaver came at her throat.

Liza was still mumbling in Hungarian. But then she remembered Alexa. The demon had found the girl. Liza attacked it, hitting it with her toaster. The demon paid no attention to her or her toaster. The demon's arm shot out and struck her. She fell unconscious. The demon never turned away from Alexa. It reached for her with less certainty now that the big eye was trained on Buffy.

Buffy felt a whoosh of air as the meat cleaver went past her head. She kicked Berta in the stomach. Berta staggered back.

  


The front door lock gave way after being hammered with a brick. Giles came through the living room into the kitchen. Xander, Willow and Cordelia followed him. A large headed demon with a gray hollow where its eye used to be menaced a young girl who sat motionless with tape over her mouth. Giles raised a kitchen chair holding the legs up like a lion tamer. He jabbed at the demon as a way of distracting it from Alexa. The demon was not distracted.

Berta recovered from Buffy's kick. She still had the meat cleaver. She swung it sideways giving Buffy no room to duck. Buffy was pressed into the wall as she backed out of the way. Berta swung again.

  
  


To be continued...


	11. Chapter 11

Monster Of The Fic: The Maid's Tale

Chapter 11

  
  


Giles had the kitchen chair. The others each looked for something to use as a weapon. Xander found an ironing board. Cordelia grabbed the iron. Willow crawled under the kitchen table to try and pry Alexa out of the corner. Giles raised the chair and slammed it onto the demon's head. The chair had no effect.

Xander brought down the ironing board on the demon's back. Nothing. Cordelia took her turn. She raised the iron with both hands and struck the demon with the sharp end. She made a dent in the thick, yellowish hide. The demon flailed backwards with its arm, but Giles pulled Cordy back out of its reach.

Berta was swinging the meat cleaver leaving Buffy nowhere to go. The last swing grazed Buffy's middle. Buffy yanked a cutting board off the wall. She blocked the next swing of the meat cleaver at the last second. The meat cleaver stuck in the wood. Buffy tried to use it to wrench the meat cleaver out of Berta's hand. Berta hung on.

The Yulig demon was focused on Alexa. It was still unsure of where she was. Feeling around for her, the demon's hand grazed Alexa's face. She didn't flinch. Willow grabbed Alexa by the arm and pulled her back further under the table. The demon grabbed for her and missed.

Buffy pulled on the cutting board and Berta held on to her weapon. As she jerked Berta forward, Buffy got a really close look at her face. Berta's skin was sallow and lifeless. Congealed blood rimmed the large, inhuman eye. Looking into it, Buffy felt dizzy. She lost her grip on the board.

Berta hit her with the meat cleaver. Luckily the board was still stuck to it. Buffy slumped over from the blow, but there was no major damage. Seeing her weapon was blunted, Berta slammed it into the edge of the counter with full force. The board fell away. Berta aimed the meat cleaver at Buffy's neck. But then she stopped and turned her head.

The Yulig demon groped around wildly. Willow barely kept Alexa out of his reach. Together, Giles and Xander lifted the kitchen table and slammed it into the demon then used it to pin it against the sink. Cordelia helped Willow carry Alexa to the living room.

The kitchen table didn't hold the demon for long. The demon shoved it away and Xander and Giles with it. It barreled past them. Giles noticed that Berta's big new eye was staring in the direction of the living room.

"Keep the eye distracted," Giles told Buffy. "Without it, it can't see."

Then he went after Xander into the living room to play keep-away with Alexa and the demon.

Buffy punched Berta on the side of the head. She grabbed the arm that had the meat cleaver, and swung Berta around. Buffy rammed her into the refrigerator door.

"Feeling distracted yet?" she asked.

  


In the living room, the Yulig demon was trudging toward Alexa as Willow and Cordelia carried her toward the front door. Xander and Giles followed. The demon shoved Cordelia and Willow to the side. They landed on the floor along with Alexa. The demon approached them. Its knotted body was bent over Alexa, the eyeless head looming over her.

Xander rushed the demon and tackled it into a knickknack shelf. Tiny porcelain knickknacks rained down on the demon without harming it. Cordelia and Willow scrambled to get up. Xander crawled away from the demon. Giles picked up Alexa. She was still inert. She might have been unconscious except her eyes were open.

Now that Buffy was distracting the eye, the demon couldn't find Alexa. But it could find the front door and block it. Moving forward, it followed an arc that kept the door unreachable. It swiped the air with its long twisted arms without making contact with anything except an occasional unlucky piece of furniture.

Cordelia climbed over a sofa to keep out of its reach. Giles handed Alexa to Xander as the demon approached him. Willow threw Giles a magazine rack from which the magazines, mostly People, had already been spilled. Giles caught it and used it to strike the demon on the side of its head. Giles didn't get out of the way fast enough. The demon grabbed him. It hurled him into a glass cabinet. The glass door shattered, the good dishes crashed on Giles's head.

The demon abandoned Giles and continued its search for Alexa. Willow rushed over to Giles. The Yulig demon made an educated guess that Alexa was on her way out the door. It was right. Xander and Alexa were nearly gone. But then Xander heard Giles wreck Liza's china collection, and he gave Alexa to Cordelia. That's when the demon reached them. It blindly grabbed Cordelia by the back of the neck and she screamed. Xander tried to pry it off her, but the other demon hand found his throat.

Willow couldn't revive Giles. She looked over to the others. In pain from the demon's grip, Cordelia had dropped Alexa right on the doorstep. The demon was about to drive Cordy's face into the doorjamb. Xander was choking.

Willow screamed for Buffy. But Buffy was busy.

  
  


To be continued...


	12. Chapter 12

Monster Of The Fic: The Maid's Tale

Chapter 12

  
  


Berta was without the meat cleaver now. It cluttered to the floor after her face hit the refrigerator half a dozen times. Berta didn't seem concerned about the loss. She was trying to move past Buffy so she could see into the living room.

"Move along. Nothing to see here," Buffy said as she blocked her then shoved her back.

Berta's monster eye looked right at Buffy. Buffy got that extremely creepy feeling again. Berta went for Buffy's eyes.

Buffy ducked.

"No thanks. Not looking for any massive reconstructive surgery in the eye department," Buffy told her. Then she tackled Berta right into the overturned kitchen table. The table broke apart. Berta seemed stunned for the moment.

"Did you know that when things splinter you get neat, little, pointy things like this?" Buffy asked while she picked out the nicest, pointiest, piece of wood.

Buffy raised it over Berta's face. Then Buffy rolled away narrowly missing getting a sharp piece of wood in the neck.

"I guess you did know that," Buffy said. Berta had sneaked a sharp piece of wood too. She got up and tried to stab Buffy with it again.

Buffy was still on the floor, kneeling in some spilled stew, next to the unconscious Liza. Buffy grabbed a broken chair leg and knocked Berta's legs out from under her. Berta fell over. While Berta was still down, Buffy got up quickly, trying not to slip in the stew. She stuck a sharp piece of wood into Berta's back.

Buffy turned when she heard Willow shrieking her name. She went toward the living room. Before she got very far, Buffy's face was slammed into the wall.

  


Willow gave the unconscious Giles a good shake one last time. The demon had both Xander and Cordelia. Cordy's head got knocked into the doorjamb. Willow rushed over climbing over the coffee table. Cordy's forehead was bleeding. The demon was choking Xander. Xander was turning kind of blue.

Willow looked around frantically. Sofa cushions, tiny, porcelain knickknacks, magazines, crayons. Where were the fireplace pokers and decorative swords? Willow spotted a big glass picture frame with someone's wedding picture in it. She lifted it. Heavy. She swung it through the air and threw it at the demon's head. The demon's head went forward from the impact. The grip around Xander's neck loosened.

Xander made his escape by falling to the floor, gasping. The demon still had a grip on Cordy. Cordy punched it in the space where its eye should have been.

"Didn't you ever hear the expression 'not in the face'?" Cordy asked as she punched again. She was taking her forehead injury personally.

The Yulig demon made some kind of low, demon noise but didn't let her go.

Willow came over, picked up the heavy picture frame again. Only a little chipped. She raised it over her head and hit the demon with it one more time. Willow couldn't hold onto the frame, though, and it fell on the threshold and broke. The demon let go of Cordelia and grabbed for Willow, blindly. It missed when Xander pulled her down. Cordy looked dazed as she stumbled outside. She found Alexa when she tripped over her.

The Yulig demon suddenly lost interest in all of them. It stormed off toward the kitchen.

  


After prying her face away from the wall, Buffy turned to see that Berta had found the meat cleaver again.

Berta was standing there with a demon's eye imbedded where her face should have been, in an old housecoat, and the meat cleaver poised to split Buffy's head in two. Buffy held off the coming blow that would permanently part her hair in the most unattractive way. The meat cleaver was still raised high with Buffy and Berta struggling for it.

Buffy found herself facing the demon eye. She had a little trouble breathing. But then she remembered that Willow had been calling her. She raised her knee to Berta's stomach. When that didn't discourage Berta from being a meat cleaver hog, Buffy pushed Berta so she tripped over the unconscious Liza. Buffy wrenched the meat cleaver away as Berta lost her balance. Then she finished off with a meat cleaver to the eye.

  
  


To be continued...


	13. Chapter 13

Monster Of The Fic: The Maid's Tale

Chapter 13

  
  


The meat cleaver was stuck into Berta's giant eye. It stayed there for a moment without anything happening. Then a low, pained noise got Buffy's attention. Buffy turned. The Yulig demon was behind her.

"See what happens when you let someone borrow your one and only eye," Buffy told the demon.

It blindly hit her hard on the side of the neck. Buffy staggered. Regaining her footing, she punched it in its middle. The low, keening noise got louder. The demon struck her again. Buffy felt like her head was going to be knocked off. Buffy didn't recover fast enough from nearly having her head separated from her shoulders, and the demon hit her again. Buffy fell, and its next blind swing missed.

  


At the front door, Xander tried to get up, but he could only crawl. Breath only squeaked through his throat. He went over and made sure Alexa was all right. She was still unresponsive but not hurt.

Willow looked after the demon that had left them so abruptly. Cordelia did too. Cordelia went after it unsteadily. Willow followed.

Cordelia wobbled into the kitchen. She saw Berta standing still with a meat cleaver sticking out of that inhuman eye that had replaced her face. The Yulig demon was flailing around blindly. Buffy was getting up from the floor just in time to run face first into the demon's fist.

"Get the meat cleaver," Willow yelled from behind Cordelia.

Cordy went over to Berta and pulled out the meat cleaver. Demon eye goo spilled out. Willow turned away. Buffy thought she would throw up. Cordelia did.

Berta collapsed and so did the Yulig demon. Buffy grabbed the meat cleaver from Cordy's limp hand and heaved it into the demon's giant, empty eye socket. The prone demon didn't even twitch.

  


The kitchen was a disaster. Pieces of the broken door, table, a cutting board, a cooking pot and some kind of stew that used to be in it littered the floor. Also there was vomit. Buffy examined the demon to make sure it was dead by kicking it a few times. Willow slapped Liza lightly and got her to say a few things in Hungarian. Then she took her to Alexa.

Cordelia was doubled over where the kitchen table used to be. She felt sick. It wasn't just the eye goo. That was Berta lying in that mess. Her bad die job, her liver-spotted hands. Dead for hours. Her face gone. Cordy retched again.

  


Cordelia was rinsing off her mouth in the bathroom. Willow was with Giles in the torn-apart living room asking him how many fingers he was seeing, and what day it was, and who was president.

In Liza's bedroom, everything looked almost normal. Not a knickknack out of place. The bed made. A few drawers were left open, but there were no signs that anything was wrong. Except Alexa was sitting on the bed with only one shoe on, staring ahead blankly. The tape that used to be over her mouth and the weird necklace were gone. Aunt Liza was humming and brushing Alexa's hair back with her hand in a way that didn't look soothing - too fast and nervous. Liza's forearm was badly burned.

Xander was sitting right outside the bedroom door in a chair that was still intact. They weren't going to stick around long. There was an ambulance on the way and maybe the cops if the neighbors around there were worth anything.

Buffy was busy dragging the demon's dead body into the back yard. She stashed it in some bushes. She trusted the Sunnydale cops not to get too inquisitive.

  


Before leaving, Giles told Liza what to say so she wouldn't get sent to the loony bin. It boiled down to "I got knocked out, and I don't know what happened".

"Leave it to the Sunnydale authorities to make up their own unlikely scenario," Giles said as he patted her on the arm that wasn't burned. She nodded, but she had the blank stare of someone in shock.

Cordelia looked back toward the kitchen. They had left Berta's body there. Her death would be recorded as some kind of one in a million kitchen accident no doubt.

Cordelia still looked kind of green and upset as they walked her home. Willow had the urge to put her arm around her, but she didn't think that Cordelia would appreciate the nerd cooties.

"I guess I was kind of hoping we would save her," Cordelia said in a softer voice than anyone had ever heard her use.

"We did save Alexa," Buffy pointed out.

"And that's good," Xander agreed, sounding hoarse from the choking.

Giles nodded.

They were in front of Cordelia's big house. She just stared at it for a second, then turned back to them.

"Sorry about Berta," Xander told her in his croaky voice. "I'd give you a hug, but you'd probably slug me."

"And get my self deloused," Cordelia added automatically. Xander gave her a crooked smile.

Cordelia started to go then stopped again. Her house seemed too big when she looked at it. The three losers and the librarian were waiting for something.

"I hope you don't expect to get paid. Or thanked," Codelia said, and she walked off.

"Now that's how you bounce back, people," Xander said pointing after Cordelia with awe.

"I am impressed," Buffy said.

"I'm relieved. A maudlin Cordelia is like Giles in shorts," Willow agreed.

"Willow, how could you?" Buffy gasped. She covered her eyes so she couldn't see Giles even in the corner of her eye.

"That is uncalled for," Giles protested.

"Buffy, kill her, she is evil," Xander told Buffy. His outstretched hand was pointing at Willow.

"I would, but I'm never opening my eyes ever again," Buffy said, still covering her eyes.

"I'll be your seeing eye dog, Buff," Xander said as he hooked his arm with Buffy's.

"Sorry guys. I didn't mean to traumatize you," Willow said as she followed them.

"Ungrateful American brats," Giles muttered to himself as he trailed too far behind to hear anything more they might say.

  
  


The End


End file.
